Goodness or Blessing?
And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them...
(Genesis 1:21-22)
Why would God bless something that was already good? Why does something good need to be blessed? Only God can judge what is really good, and good things do not automatically contain blessing. Only He can add blessing to something.
We want what we consider to be good, much more than we want God's blessing. So we say to Him, "Just give me these things that seem good to me (career, security, Christian morality and lifestyle, "successful" ministry, a spouse, children), but the blessing is not so important." We think we have God's blessing because we have these things that seem good to us.
But to make the distinction clear and to highlight His blessing, God often separates the two and blesses that which He knows we will consider bad or painful. After the fall, blessing is always inseparable from sacrifice (symbolized by the blood of Abel's offering compared to Cain's which was merely good). We always try to separate the blessing from the suffering. But if we reject the suffering, we lose the blessing with it. It is more important that we receive and pass God's blessing on to our friends, to our husband or wife and children, than that we pass on "good" things that are passing away. The blessing is all that matters.
[AV, (c)1998]
(Genesis 1:21-22)
Why would God bless something that was already good? Why does something good need to be blessed? Only God can judge what is really good, and good things do not automatically contain blessing. Only He can add blessing to something.
We want what we consider to be good, much more than we want God's blessing. So we say to Him, "Just give me these things that seem good to me (career, security, Christian morality and lifestyle, "successful" ministry, a spouse, children), but the blessing is not so important." We think we have God's blessing because we have these things that seem good to us.
But to make the distinction clear and to highlight His blessing, God often separates the two and blesses that which He knows we will consider bad or painful. After the fall, blessing is always inseparable from sacrifice (symbolized by the blood of Abel's offering compared to Cain's which was merely good). We always try to separate the blessing from the suffering. But if we reject the suffering, we lose the blessing with it. It is more important that we receive and pass God's blessing on to our friends, to our husband or wife and children, than that we pass on "good" things that are passing away. The blessing is all that matters.
[AV, (c)1998]
posted by CS at 4:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home